Like a poster for a exploitative horror movie with a hot chick cradling her machine gun in her arms, this books brings in the punters with it's naughty title but fails to deliver well executed action, humour, or sexiness.
Instead we follow hapless Mortimer, ex-accountant, looking for his ex-wife in post-Apocalyptic America. I guess Mortimer: Accountant Avenger just wasn't going to sell as many books. The book is an easy read and I did finish it almost painlessly. Up until the last couple of chapters I was convinced this was going to be the first in a series, just because it took so long for Mortimer and company to find the head guy and then be given a mission. Supposedly Mortimer comes out of hiding after nine or ten years to go and find his ex-wife, but he never convinces himself or the reader that that is the reason. Mostly he is just lonely. Instead, after sort of thrashing around for 218 pages the book suddenly has a 'purpose' of a sorts, which in the end doesn't achieve much. 'New boss, same as the old boss'. Gischler doesn't really evoke a sense of mood or texture, I never got a very clear picture of the world, and the action, especially the final battle at the end of the book, amounts to a pretty lame car chase. There is plenty of gore, but mostly the effect is B monster movie splatter.
The blurb on the cover (not the author's fault) draws unfortunate comparisons to Christopher Moore and Quentin Tarantino. Moore is way funnier and Tartinto's violence (when he is on his game) is far more shocking and effective.
Now, I'm just the kind of sexist pig who enjoys tits and ass, even when they are written about, but I had trouble with the book's depiction of the girl, Shelia, that 38 year old Mortimer hooks up with. To start with she is a girl, "sixteen or seventeen at most, but Mortimer wasn't sure that sort of thing mattered anymore." (148) Which is, whether you like it or not, common in male fantasies (also stat-rape in real life). But in the context of this story Shelia sleeps with Mortimer to 'thank/apologize' to him for saving her from a sadistic bastard who had probably being raping her since she was nine. She brushes this off later saying she wants to become a go-go-girl (prostitute) and that the guy wasn't raping her, he was stealing from her (not paying).
It really bugs me that Shelia doesn't seem to be affected at all from nine to ten years of sexual and physical abuse. That and Mortimer doesn't seem to connect himself, an adult in a relationship with her, with the sadistic idiot who has used Shelia from a very young age. Sigh. That's my rant. I'm fine with silly plots, dumb characters, and sexy fantasy, but I just couldn't swallow Shelia the happy hooker.
So why did I read this book? I was given it as a gift and then suckered in by the blurb. Perhaps it is the definition of a bestseller in that it was as easy to read to the end as it would have been to put it down. I'm done. I ranted. Now to find something with boobs that doesn't make me feel so dirty.
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